Gun Control?...

The news is dominated recently with all the talk about gun control. Sparked by the recent mass killings in Newtown, Aurora... First, and certainly most important, let me say my heart is broken. I feel so much pain and sadness that innocent people going about their lives have been gunned down in cold blood. By deranged, psychopathic and diabolically evil killers. And if you consider that in the incident in Newtown twenty of those killed were children, you can't get much more evil than that. There's one mitigating thing we must consider though. I'm not defending anyone, don't get me wrong. But the perps in most of these mass shootings aren't just out and out evil people who aspire to kill for the joy of it, they're mentally deranged or incapacitated, to some extent. Not capable of making rational decisions. Except for a few people in society, literally a few, no one goes out and buys guns and ammo and makes elaborate, fastidious plans to kill innocent people going about their business. But if there is a screw loose, then the possibility for that opens up. Therein lies the problem, the real problem. Mental illness. If you've ever been close to someone with mental illness and been subjected to life with a mentally ill person then you understand. Unexpected, bizarre, irrational, insensitive and lots more adjectives like those can be used to describe their behavior. They can hurt themselves and they can hurt others without remorse. They can even do it without understanding what they have done. We are quick to call them evil and diabolical, and what they have done certainly is. A mentally ill person is not evil and diabolical but they are capable of doing horribly evil things, including killing. Keeping guns away from them obviously makes sense. Just like keeping knives and sharp objects away from them does. For some, even not allowing them to drive might be prudent. Guns need to be banned, FROM THEM. Banning guns or even controlling them from everyone else serves no purpose other than to deny citizens a constitutional right and just generally irritate most people. Fundamentally, guns need to be kept from those who are capable of killing other people. Period. The problem is identifying who that is. It's not easy, far from it. There are mentally ill people who are high functioning, they go about life almost indetectable. You cant tell them from everyone else. Are they capable of killing? Most of them aren't, no. But the line has to be drawn somewhere. Like everything else in our society, and our government, what ever we come up with wont be flawless or foolproof. We're humans  after all, we're not capable of flawlees and foolproof. In the case of our government they're not even capable of, sorry I digress... But we need, must do something to control access to guns by the mentally ill. Our definition of mentally ill is going to have to be broadened and expanded. It's going to have to include a lot of people. Maybe we can call call it something else so a lot of people wont be offended. Hell, I might be one of them and I dont want to be called mentally ill. But I really dont want to kill someone unless I really mean it... That didnt come out like I really meant it but you get the message. It's not the guns, that's not the real problem. Why is it so hard to see that?... Maybe if we made lawmakers spend a week in an asylum... Then, they would 'get it'...